Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence
unenvironment.org
Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence
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Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence
#2In case anyone else wanted to quantify "huge":
> “Polluted air can cause everyone to reduce their level of education by one year, which is huge,” Yale School of Public Health's Professor Xi Chen, one of the report's authors, said in an interview published in The Guardian.[0]
[0] https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/air-pol...
Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence
#3Electrification of surface transport is the most obvious way to improve air quality in dense cities. This needs to be a priority.
Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence
#4The actual study [1] isn't as much clickbait:
> We find that long-term exposure to air pollution impedes cognitive performance in verbal and math tests.
> We provide evidence that the effect of air pollution on verbal tests becomes more pronounced as people age, especially for men and the less educated.
> The damage on the aging brain by air pollution likely imposes substantial health and economic costs, considering that cognitive functioning is critical for the elderly for both running daily errands and making high-stake decisions.
Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence
#5The actual study is linked early in the article here: (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/08/21/1809474115)
Quoting:
> ... Cutting annual mean concentration of particulate matter smaller than 10 μm (PM10) in China to the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard (50 μg/m3) would move people from the median to the 63rd percentile (verbal test scores) and the 58th percentile (math test scores), respectively. The damage on the aging brain by air pollution likely imposes substantial health and economic costs, considering that cognitive functioning is critical for the elderly for both running daily errands and making high-stake decisions.
Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence
#6Unpossible.
First, it likely depends what kind of pollution Second, this title or the research is likely hyping up the results
Can't even be bothered to click on the link...
Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence
#7I'd be interested in how reading more about how they're controlling for non-air pollution factors, particularly since they say the effects are most pronounced among the non educated.
Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence
#8Previous discussion of the same topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17867085
Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence
#9Electrification of surface transport is the most obvious way to improve air quality in dense cities. This needs to be a priority.
China is putting ~10k electric buses a month on the road:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/04/china-is-adding-a-lon...
Re: Air pollution linked to “huge” reduction in intelligence
#10I think that correlation works in both directions!